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Saturday, 29 June 2013

Review of 'The Fool's Girl' by Celia Rees

'The Fool's Girl' by Celia Rees

‘Have you seen a country under sack? Have you seen what happens
there? Have you seen the blood, heard the screaming, smelt the smoke on
the wind?... I saw the red flash of the guns, the white smoke, felt
walls shudder. I saw tall galleys spew fire that spreadover the decks in a blazing carpet, turning men into torches…’

When I heard that her latest, ‘The Fool’s Girl’,
was set during Elizabeth I’s reign, I was keen to read it. That’s the
opening passage above. I was under its spell from the first line.

Celia Rees

Like ‘Pirates’, like ‘Sovay’,
and her other books, it’s an exciting adventure – such a page-turner
that you hardly notice how firmly it’s based on solid research, and how
deftly that research is used in creating a sense of place and atmosphere
without ever distracting you from the story. I much admired, for
instance, the way journey the players make from London to Stratford was
handled – the villages passed through that are now merely names of
stations on the tube, the sights mentioned – the ford, the old bridge.
But, while this reminds us how much our country has changed, and makes
us see the countryside of the 16th century, it’s also
entirely natural that the characters would notice these things. They’re
making their way without road-signs or maps or sat-navs – they have to
find their way by travelling from landmark to landmark.

And the book has writing like this:

‘I would see the great ship founder… I saw bodies floating, arms
outstretched, hands and faces livid in the blackness. My mother was
among them… her dress billowing, her hair flowing about her, moving like
the weed in the harbour. She hung there, suspended between brightness
and darkness… Then she pushed upwards, making for the shifting glimmer
above her, her head breaking the surface like a sleek seal…

She rose from the water… coming out of the waves like some mysterious
mer-creature… Behind her, day had become night. The storm raged and
between sky and water there was no margin, only inky blackness. Then a
single flash of lightening forked from the firmament, stitching heaven
and earth together, and she stood illuminated by the sudden violent
brightness…’

This
beautiful image of floating between brightness and darkness, of rising
from the depths, reoccurs through the book, like the lapping of waves on
a shore. There are other echoes too, from many of Shakespeare’s plays:
from The Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, As You Like It,Henry IV, and doubtless many I didn’t spot.

But what particularly charmed me about this book is that it isn’t, I
don’t think, the historical novel I supposed it to be. Or, not simply
an historical novel. It’s alternative history. Or, perhaps, fantasy
history.

The heroine, Violetta, is the daughter of Viola, of Twelfth Night: the duchess of that land which, famously, didn’t have a sea-coast for her mother to be shipwrecked on. Yet, in The Fool’s Girl, it does, and Viola existed outside the play. As did Orsino, Malvolio, Feste and all the rest.

The book is a lovely conceit, wherein witches are matter-of-factly
known to light fires and celebrate pagan festivals on the Warwickshire
hills, and Shakespeare can ensure Violetta’s safety by handing her over
to his own village’s black and midnight hags, with whom he’s on
first-name terms.

Not content with that, Celia Rees’ imagination takes another, bolder
leap – the witches hide Violetta by taking her to a place that all
lovers of folk-lore will recognise as Elf-Land, or Tir-nan-Og.

In fact, it’s just possible that the whole book takes place in
Shakespeare’s head: diving in and out of the seething muddle of images,
plots, snatches of dialogue and half-dreams that exist in many writers’
heads.

I was also quite delighted to find a swashbuckling character named
after my grandfather – George Price – though Granddad never buckled a
swash in his life. But even without Granddad, this would still be a
gripping, romantic (in all senses) and beautifully written book.